What role did the Space Race have in building and taking down American confidence in the superiority of the capitalism over communism?

Respond with a concise paragraph of around 150 words.

The space race was a competition between two cold war rivals. The building of confidence was of us Americans believing that we would win the race because we were to believe that our technology was more advanced than the Russians. The Russians launched their satelittes first and one the space race, bringing down the confidence of America. The Russian's technology was more advanced being the largest country in the world, making it the richest in resources in the world. With that said, we underestimated the intelligence of the Russians.